baby picture

the birth of superdummy

Friday, November 9, 2007

My Life As A Crimefighter

I was born in 1982, at a very early age, as my mother, Viola's response to a nationwide shortage of stupidty. While still a small caped crusader in tights I was bitten by a radioactive accountant which shorted out all the brain cells that would normally have calculated my enlightened self interest and left me with no other career choice than serving other people, and worse yet, trying to save them from themselves. As a teenager, with the help of an alchoholic high school guidance counselor, I decided to become a superhero citizen artist social worker and earn fame and fortune fighting crime and injustice in the big city.

As I said I was born in response to a nationwide shortage of stupidity. It was back in the eighties when everybody knew everything and brains kept bumping into other brains. "Voila!" said Viola, "Enter Superdummy STAGE LEFT!", a Super Hero with a Pooh Bear size brain so he could at least get thru the crowd, not seem out of place on stupid talk shows, not be noticed at rich people's parties or their political confabs, do stupid performance art stunts, be so stupid he could't be degraded by any context, not even press conferences, WHATAGUY, where is he, anyway? Silly, skinny, almost invisible ...until at just the right moment.....ALLAKAZAM BLAM ZOWIEEE! WHAM! ZOCK! POW! THUD! OOOPS! Looks like he crashed into the wrong building and rescued the wrong goo goo eyed blushing young librarian again. Will there be lawsuits? Sure. But hey! It's the price of glory! It's what life in the fast lane is all about....ask OJ, ask Jeffrey Dahmer, ask Condi Rice, ask Godzilla----do I ever get the girl? Are you kidding? I know I am.

So looking at the national and world scene what's a nice guy like SuperDummy doing in a grade B plot like this? He was the only guy dumb enough to apply for the job. What job? Combatting the politics of FEAR and NARCISSM: 9/11 lookatme, lookatme, I'm a war president, lookatme, 9/11 9/11 lookatmet gonna have to raise the price of oil and suspend civil liberties, lookatme, did I mention 9/11? Happened just as if we planned it that way, SCRATCH THAT! Combatting climate change would be bad for the economy, then the evil doers would win. 9/11, 9/11....

THEN Narcissus turns media whore, designs self conscious clothes, makes endless speeches and bad movies and then shoots up the classroom. But who gave him his broken mirror? So now I gotta also fight DREAD. NAUSEA, ANOMIE, ANXIETY, SIDE EFFECTS, MALL SALES AND THAT TIRED, ACHEY FEELING....but who else can always be there for you to plant the SEEDS OF HOPE in DESPAIR?

"Inspector Jergens, this looks like a job for...." (OK, all together now, boys and girls....)